


The Feelings of a Half-Human Half-Galra

by boredom



Series: BWNSG [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), broganes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 00:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16506071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boredom/pseuds/boredom
Summary: A few days after the events of "Black and White with No Shades of Grey", Keith is starting to feel more isolated, despite there being more people. It's up to Shiro and Ulaz to figure out what's going and help him feel safe and secure.





	The Feelings of a Half-Human Half-Galra

**Author's Note:**

> Some Broganes fluff and angst for everyone. I'm almost done with the second longer story and will probably start posting sometime in December so be on the lookout, as well as on the lookout for other one-shots in this universe.

It had been a few quintants since Keith emerged from the pods. He was still getting used to his surroundings. The castle seemed impossibly large; and the idea that he was a paladin of Voltron, that he was actually something greater than just a piece of space trash, it was disorienting. 

Shiro tried his best to be supportive, Keith knew he did. But between the Blade, Allura, the Galra, and the aftermath of the clone, Shiro was having his own problems. And Keith hated adding to his problems. 

Still, it would have been nice if Shiro was actually around him more. As it stood, Keith had barely seen Shiro the past few quintants and he was starting to feel… alone. 

No, he wouldn’t allow himself to get mopey because Shiro wasn’t attached to him like normal. He was eighteen for crying out loud. He did not need to be around Shiro every single moment. However, despite his mental assurances that he was fine being alone, he still couldn’t help but search for Shiro. He missed him so much. 

“Where are you?” Keith hissed, looking down what seemed like an endless stream of hallways to try and find him. The castle was so much larger than their little ship; so when you lost someone in here, you really lost them. 

“Shiro?” Keith couldn’t even remember what he wanted to talk to Shiro about. He supposed he could just give up and wait to catch him at the next meal time, but now it was more about the principle.

He heard laughing coming from one of the rooms and peaked in. Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were all sitting around on sofas, but that wasn’t what drew Keith’s attention. What drew his attention was that Shiro was with them, laughing as well. 

“Okay, what about dubstep? Is that still a thing?” Shiro asked. 

“It will always be a thing!” Pidge exclaimed. 

Lance smashed a hand over her mouth. “It never was a thing, unless you have horrible taste in music.” 

Oh, they were talking about Earth. A subject that Keith knew absolutely nothing about beyond what Shiro had told him. 

“Okay, then, what’s popular now?” Shiro looked… happy. At least, he looked happier than he had in awhile. 

Keith felt his shoulders hunch forward and he stalked away. He didn’t want to ruin Shiro’s happiness, not when he couldn’t even remember what the problem was in the first place. He didn’t know what the feeling curling in his gut was, but it wasn’t good. He felt… sad, and scared. Of what? 

No, he wasn’t sad, or scared. He wasn’t. There was nothing to be sad about. Or scared about. Absolutely nothing.

oOoOoOo

When Ulaz had seen Keith walking down the hallway, looking like he was about to cry, he knew he had to do something. He identified with Keith, a lot, but more to the point he didn’t like to see any children sad. However, Keith was a tricky one. He looked like the kind of person who would rather chew his own arm off before talking about his feelings; so he had to be careful. 

Which is what led him to do an impromptu medical exam. 

“Alright, clench your jaw,” he instructed, placing his fingers on the bone in a show of medical diagnostic. Keith didn’t need any more check-ups. His injuries had all been healed in the pod and the malnourishment would be handled over the course of movements, not quintants or vargas. But Ulaz knew there was something about being in the presence of a doctor that could make a person open up. He just hoped Keith would take the bait. 

“Any pain?” 

“No, I’m fine.” 

“Alright, let me check the orbital socket.” Once again he gently pressed on the bone that, not even two quintants prior, had been smashed completely. “Are you experiencing any eye problems? Trouble focusing? Pain? Things like that?” 

Once again, Keith shook his head. 

Ulaz hummed and pulled off his gloves. “Is everything else going alright?” he asked as casually as he could manage. 

Keith didn’t answer. 

“Keith?” He turned to see the boy hunched in on himself, staring at the ground. 

He put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

No answer. 

“You can tell me, I won’t judge. Stars knows I’ve had my share of problems.” 

Keith opened and closed his mouth several times. “Are you-- you’re not full Galra, right?”

That wasn’t what Ulaz was expecting, but he could go with it. “That’s correct. My mother was Nerian and my father was Galra.” 

“So like me, except it was my mother who was Galra, and my dad was from Earth.” 

Ulaz smiled. “Why do you want to know?”

“It’s just-- I mean.”

“Take your time. I’ve got nothing else to do today.” 

Keith nodded and stared at the ground again. “Does Thace wish you were more Galra?” 

Ulaz’s smile dropped. He did not expect that. He didn’t even know what that had to do with Keith. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, like, he’s surrounded by Galra so does he ever wish you were more like them,” Keith rambled. 

Oh, Ulaz thought he understood what Keith was getting at. He took his hand and smiled at him. “Thace has known that I was mixed-race from the moment we’ve met. We’ve known each other longer than you’ve been alive. If he had a problem with it, we wouldn’t still be together.” He took a deep breath and hoped that he wasn’t off the mark. “Shiro doesn’t care that you’re not fully human.” 

Keith shook his head. “It’s different. Before I was the only one he could count on but now the others, they’re all fully human and fully from Earth.” 

Good, Ulaz was right. “Keith--”

“I just… what if I’m with him because it’s convenient?” 

Maybe this was a bit outside of Ulaz’s area of expertise. “Keith, I’m not going to pretend like I know everything about your relationship, but I do know that Shiro loves you and isn’t going to abandon you because he met three other humans. You two used to spend almost every waking moment with one another, of course it’s going to feel like he’s spending less time with you now. Maybe you can try and make friends with the other paladins.” 

“That won’t work.”

“Why not?” 

“Because, it just won’t. I’m not… I can’t.” 

Ulaz signed and handed Keith his jacket and knife back. “I’m sure you can, give them a chance. And give Shiro a chance. He’s not going to abandon you.”

Keith didn’t seem convinced as he left the med bay but there was nothing more Ulaz could do. Keith didn’t trust him enough to take his word and the problem was between him and Shiro, which meant that Ulaz was going to have to get Shiro involved. 

He set out to find the man and was relieved to see him wandering around the hall. 

“Ulaz, have you seen Keith? I haven’t seen him all day.” He sounded worried.

“Yes, I just finished a check-up on him.”

Shiro looked even more worried. “I thought everything was okay. Did something happen?” 

He held up a hand to silence Shiro before the man continued panicking. “He’s fine. I saw him looking sad and thought he could use someone to talk to.”

“Oh, and did you figure out what was wrong?” 

He shrugged. “I think he feels isolated here.”

“Isolated?” 

“And he’s worried now that you have three humans to bond with, you’ll abandon him.”

Shiro was shocked. “No, I would never do that to him.”

“I know you wouldn’t, but maybe go and reassure him?” 

Shiro nodded and set off. He was worried that Keith would feel as though Ulaz had overstepped his bounds. However, he couldn’t bring himself to care about that, not when Keith was having such a hard time adjusting. He would deal with the consequences later, for now, the most important thing was to make sure all of the children felt safe and secure. 

oOoOoOo

Shiro came to a stop in front of Keith’s door. He paused for a moment to try and figure out how he was going to handle this. It wasn’t the first time Keith had thought Shiro would abandon him or get rid of him, and it certainly would not be the last time. But it got so frustrating when, after all they’d been through, Keith would assume the worst. At least he hadn’t tried to jump ship yet, which had happened a couple of times before. 

He knocked on the door. “Keith, buddy, can I come in?” 

The door slid open to reveal Keith wearing his regular clothes, sans boots and jackets. “Shiro? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” He stepped in the room, glad that Keith seemed to not be completely breaking down. “I just know that the last couple of days have been very stressful and I wanted to make sure you were alright.” Yes, be as nonchalant as possible. With Keith, you had to build up to bigger displays of emotion. Too much too soon would scare him off even more. It was all a very complicated process that Shiro had come to learn via trial and error. 

“I’m fine. You worry too much.”

“I should be worried. You’re keeping your knife collection in here.” 

Keith groaned. “Shiro, I’m eighteen, I should be allowed to keep my knives in my room.” He flopped down on the bed. 

Shiro sat beside him and started running his fingers through his hair. “They could still fall off the shelf and stab you when you’re asleep.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he grumbled, his voice muffled by the blankets. “Do your other hand, and heat it up.” 

He rolled his eyes but indulged him heating up his hand just enough that it would be like a nice hot water bottle against his scalp. 

“These beds are nice,” Shiro mused, not sure how to breach the conversation. 

“Yeah. I didn’t know things could be this soft.” He was starting to purr quietly, relaxing into the bed. 

When they had first met, Shiro found the sounds a bit unnerving. Keith looked human and humans did not make the noises that he could make. Still, most of the sounds were instinctual, involuntary, like flinching. And this made it much easier for Shiro to figure out what Keith was actually feeling. Plus, when we was purring, it was kind of cute. Shiro had always wanted a cat. 

“Keith, you know I love you, right? And that I’m not going to abandon you just because Hunk, Pidge, and Lance exist?” 

Keith groaned and sat up. “Ulaz told you?”

“He was worried.”

“Yeah, well, I’m never telling him anything again.” 

“I’m glad he told me. You know I don’t like it when you keep things from me, especially things like this. If you were worried, why didn’t you come talk to me?” 

“I don’t know.” Keith threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know that this was a problem until today. Then I felt bad because it’s selfish to not want you to make friends or find out more about Earth, and then I felt even worse because I didn’t try and find out more things about Earth.” 

He was saying a lot, but he still wasn’t admitting any of his worse feelings. Shiro knew it would be like pulling teeth to get this kid to confess to anything, so he pulled him into a hug, heating up the entire arm this time. 

“Keith, I could have gone back to Earth any time, but I didn’t. I chose to stay with you. Despite the fact that you never listen to me, you punch first and ask questions later, and you keep trying to sneak animals on board our ship.” 

“Yeah, yeah. You had to admit, the lexibal was cute.” 

“It breathed fire and shot poisonous spikes out of its back.”

“It would have made a perfect guard pet.” 

Shiro laughed and released the hug. “I ask them about Earth stuff because I’m curious to know what’s changed since I’ve left. But that topic will get worn out after awhile. You should try and hang out with them some time. You seem like you’d get along with them.” 

Keith wrinkled his nose. “Except for Lance, he annoys the hell out of me.” 

“If you say so. Actually, they were asking about you earlier. They wanted to talk to you.” 

“About what?” 

“Pidge wanted some tips flying, especially after I told her you were a better pilot than me. Hunk wanted to know for certain that space vampires don’t exist.” 

“What’s a space vampire?” 

Shiro ruffled his hair. “I’ll let him explain it to you. Lance wanted to know if you purred.” 

Keith’s eyes widened comically before narrowing to a glare. “You didn’t tell him anything, right?” 

He laughed. “No, I didn’t. I know you can get self conscious about these things. But be careful, I don’t think he believed me. Now, let’s go get some dinner. Hunk’s cooking and if it is anything like what he made for me before, it’s going to be great.” 

Keith followed him out of his room and down the hall. “Are you sure? I don’t want to eat anything gross.”

“Kid, you ate at Vrepit Sal’s and didn’t throw up. Trust me, it’s going to be fine.” 

Shiro knew they were going to have to have this conversation again. Keith had abandonment issues like nobody else’s and Shiro fully blamed that asshole mother who left him, but they were working through them. He was better than when they first met, and the fact that he had opened up so quickly to not only Shiro, but Ulaz as well, told him that they were making strides in the right direction. Maybe one day, Keith would finally feel secure with his place in the universe and with Shiro.


End file.
